ICAST started because the world is not a peaceful, loving place as God our Heavenly Parent intended. ICAST is a calling from God, we will be misunderstood and occasionally overwhelmed by the magnitude of this evil we will encounter, but we remain committed and involved in this just and noble cause because this is what God has called us to do.

Understanding the Layers

Understanding the Layers

After our Senior Pastor
spoke about the Human Trafficking of young girls and the sex industry making
money through the tourism trading in child sex, I wanted to find out more about
it.

When Abigail Kuzma from
the Indiana Attorney Generals Office, who is the Director and Chief Council of
Consumer Proctection and Co-Chair of IPATH which stands for Indiana Protection
of Abused and Trafficked Humans, spoke at our Stopping the Porn Culture – A
Pastor’s Forum, I had no idea of the scope of the problem.

IPATH goals are PREVENTION,
PROTECTION, AND PROSECUTION

IPATH uses a collaborative
strategy to implement it’s goals by working with the U. S. Attorney’s Office,
FBI, Homeland Security, Department of Labor, and locally with the Indianapolis
Metropolitan Police Department, Department of Child Services, the JulianCenter, ExodusRefugeeCenter, Neighborhood Christian Legal Clinic, and a host
of other concerned citizen groups.

IPATH’s five (5) areas are
Law Enforcement, Victim Services, Protocol, Awareness, and Training. IPATH is also a part of PILLARS OF HOPE- a
national initiative- Attorney’s General United Against Human Trafficking. What
we learned was an overview of IPATH, who is involved, and what we can do to
stop Human Trafficking.

What
is Human Trafficking? What is Sex Trafficking?

Sex Trafficking and Labor Trafficking

Sex Trafficking: in which a commercial sex act is induced by force, fraud,
or coercion, or in which the person induced to perform such acts has not
attained 18 years of age or

Labor Trafficking: The recruitment, harboring,
transportation, provision, or obtaining of a person for labor, services,
through the use of force, fraud, or coercion for the purpose of subjection to
involuntary servitude, peonage, debt bondage, or slavery. (Federal Law-Victims of Trafficking and
Violence Prevention Act of 2000)

The Pillars of Hope National 2011 Initiative is headed by Indiana’s
AG Greg Zoeller who serves on the Leadership Council.

Human trafficking is a $32
billion global industry driven by trafficking profit. It’s the fastest growing
and second largest criminal activity in the world, just behind arms and ahead
of drug dealing.

Eleven years ago, the
United Nations created the international standards against trafficking in
persons, and the US enacted the Trafficking Victims Protection Act (TVPA). In June 2011, 184 countries—including the US—were reported in the Trafficking in Persons Report
(TIP). The report estimated 12.3 million adults and children are trafficked
across international borders into forced labor and sexual exploitation. Between
100,000 and 300,000 children are at risk for sexual exploitation in the US with an average age of 11 to 14 years old,
according to the TIP Report.

It is estimated that 76
percent of transactions for sex with underage girls start on the Internet [1],
which triggered a rash of activity by Attorneys General and public outcry
against organizations such as craigslist and backpage.com. Coalitions of technology,
anti‐trafficking
NGOs, and government authorities have been developed to take action across the
public and private sector. Media attention is fueling awareness and stepping up
actions to stop sexual and labor exploitation in our communities. Human
trafficking awareness is at a tipping point in our society. With this in mind,
Washington Attorney General Rob McKenna, the 2011‐12 President of the National
Association of Attorneys General, has selected this problem as the focus of his
presidential initiative.

Pillars of Hope: Attorneys
General Unite against Human Trafficking is built upon the following four
pillars:

Pillar 1): Making the Case

Gather stat-specific data on human trafficking and create a
database that assists local authorities with identifying human trafficking
cases.

Pillar 2): Holding Traffickers
Accountable

Pillar 3): Mobilizing Communities to Care
for Victims

Coordination among service providers, law enforcement, and
state agencies to assist in indentifying and protecting victims.

Pillar 4): Raising Public Awareness &
Reducing the Demand

Increase public awareness campaign regarding human
trafficking that will assist the victims and work to reduce demand for
trafficking

Our Pastor’s Forum learned that studies have shown there is
an increase in the demand for commercial sex services surrounding large
sporting events or conventions such as the Super Bowl, World Series, etc. Any increase in the commercial sex industry
also increase the potential risk for exploitation and human trafficking.

Indianapolis
is the site of the 2012 Super Bowl and Texas
was the state which hosted the Super Bowl last year.

A study conducted by
Traffick 911 out of Fort Worth, Texas
in conjunction with local law enforcement, monitored online escort ads and
showed a weekly increase in activity during the Super Bowl as follows:

- Saturday, January
15th 135

- Saturday, January
22nd 179

- Saturday, January
29th 232

- Saturday, February
5th 367

Also, 59
Prostitution arrests were made before and on the 2011 Super Bowl

11 of the arrests
were suspected of being Human Trafficking (Jessica Huseman Dallasnews.com 2/14/11)

A Growing Problem World Wide……

According to the US Dept of State’s 2010 Trafficking in
Person’s Report-

-12.3 Million Adults and Children are forced into labor,
bonded labor and forced prostitution. (this is a subject for my next article)

……and At Home

Midwest and Indiana

With 2,515 trafficking investigations were opened by the
Dept of Justice Anti-Trafficking Task force between 2008 and 2010 you have the
following breakdown:

-239 cases in the Midwest

-46 opened by Indiana
law enforcement and 30 by service providers

651 Trafficking investigations were opened by the US
Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) in 2010 which resulted in